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THE 



AMERICAN UNION: 



A DISCOURSE 



DELIVERED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1850, 



THE DAY OF THE ANNUAL THANKSGIVING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 



AND REPEATED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 



IN THE TENTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA. 



1'.' 

-b; 
HENRY A. BOARDMAN, D. D. 



jFourtl) olljousanb. 




PHILADELPHIA: 
LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO AND CO., 

SUCCESSORS TO GRIGG, ELLIOT & CO. 

1851. 






Eatered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by 
LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO AND CO., 
the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS, PKINTERS. 



To the Rev. Henry A. Boardman, D. D. 

Philadelphia, December 20th, 1850. 
Dear Sir : — Your friends and immediate fellow-citizens who have 
listened to your discourse on the Union, are naturally desirous of 
sharing with the country at large the advantages of so valuable a pro- 
duction. 

The spirit of true patriotism which it breathes is especially calcu- 
lated to do good by being widely diffused at the present moment, while 
it is distinguished by a tone of piety that is auspicious at all times, and 
cannot fail to be universally acceptable. 

In the name of all who had the satisfaction to witness your eloquence 
on this interesting occasion, we respectfully ask that you would favor 
us with the use of the manuscript for publication. 
With sincere respect and regard. 

Your friends and faithful servants, 
J. R. Ingersoll, G. M. Dallas, 

R. Patterson, W. M. Meredith, 

John K. Findlat, Jos. Patterson, 

W. C. Patterson, R- M. Patterson, 

John W. Forney, Edward Armstrong, 

John S. Riddle. 



Philadelphia, December 20t7i, 1850. 
To the Rev. Henry A. Boardman, D. D. 

Reverend and Dear Sir -.—Cordially approving the sentiments ex- 
pressed by you in your recent discourse on the American Union, and 
believing that a more general diffusion of these sentiments would 
tend to the formation of a sound public opinion on this very important 
subject, and being desirous, moreover, individually, in some explicit and 
formal manner, to testify our own devout attachment to the Union, and 
our utter dissent from those who would subvert it, and our determina- 
tion to abide by the Constitution and laws, and more particularly those 
laws of the last session of Congress known as the Compromise Acts, we, 
the undersigned, do most gratefully and heartily thank you for your 
eloquent and timely discourse on this subject, and request a copy of the 
same for publication. 

Alex. W. Mitchell, M. D., Charles B. Penrose, 

Wm. H. Dillingham, A. V. Parsons, 

Lawrence Lewis, John S. Hart, 

Wm. Shippen, M. D., James B. Rogers 

C. B. Jaudon, Wm. Harris, M. D. 

Hugh Elliot, J- N. Dickson, 

Francis West, M. D., Smith, Murphy & Co., 

Wm. Goodrich, Hogan & Thompson, 

R. R. Bearden, J- B. Ross, 

Turner, Harris & Hale, James Boggs, 

James Imbrie, Jr., Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 



IV CORRESPONDENCE. 

Jno. R. Vogdes, Peter L. Ferguson, 

John K. Townsend, M. D., Truitt, Brother & Co., 

W. H. GiLLINGHAM, M. D., Martin & Smith, 

A. B. CcMMiNGS, W. Kirk, 

John II. Brown, Arthur A. Burt, 

Samuel Hood, Morris Patterson, 

William B. Hieskell, Faust & Winebrenner, 

Moses Johnson, William Brown, 

Dale, Ross & Withers, D. B. Birnet, 

Thos. H. Hoge, Gemmill & Cresswell, 

DuNDAs T. Pratt, J. G. Mitchell, 

F. N. Buck, Scott, Baker & Co., 

James Orne, J. Anspach, Jr., 

James Schott, Geo. C. Barber, 

Wm. VeITCH, J. W. TiLFORD, 

LiND & Brother, Jno. McArthur, 

Taylor & Paulding, Robt. M. Slaymaker, 

B. P. Hutchinson, A. W. Slack, 
Sibley, Moulton & Woodruff, James Burrowes, 
David Springs & Co., Knorr & Fuller, 

R. B. Brinton & Co., De Coursey, Lafourcade & Co., 

James Leslie, Maurice A. AVurts, 
Henry R. Davis. 



Philadelphia, December IZd, 1850. 
Gentlemen: — I cannot doubt that the favor with which my late 
humble effort in behalf of the Union has been received, is to be 
ascribed more to the existing state of the public mind on this sub- 
ject, than to the intrinsic merits of the performance itself. I do not 
feel at liberty, however, to decline an application emanating from a 
body of my fellow-citizens so honorably representing the commerce of 
our city, and the learned professions, and comprising gentlemen whose 
public services have won for them the respect and gratitude of the 
nation, and identified their fame with that of the Union. 

In the hope that the discourse which you have in such flattering 
terms requested for publication may be made, by a good Providence, 
instrumental in promoting in some degree the cause which we all have 
so much at heart, I herewith place the manuscript at your disposal. 
I am very faithfully. 

Your friend and fellow-citizen, 

H. A. BOARDMAN. 

To the Hon. Joseph R. Ingersoll, 
Major-General Patterson, 
Hon. George M. Dallas, 
Hon. AVm. M. Meredith, 
Hon. Charles B. Penrose, 
Hon. A. V. Parsons, 
Alex. W. Mitchell, M. D. 
Wm. H. Dillingham, Esq., 
Professor Hart, 
Lawrence Lewis, Esq., and others. 



THE UNION. 



Do ye thus requite the Lord, foolish people and unwise ? is not he 
thy father that hath bought thee ? hath he not made thee, and established 
thee ? 

Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations : 
ask thy father, and he will show thee ; thy elders, and they will tell 
thee. 

When the Most High divided to' the nations their inheritance, when 
he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people accord- 
ing to the number of the children of Israel. 

For the Lord's portion is his people ; Jacob is the lot of his inherit- 
ance. 

He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness ; 
he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. 

As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth 
abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings ; 

So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with 
him. 

He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat 
the increase of the fields ; and he made him to suck honey out of the 
rock, and oil out of the flinty rock ; 

Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the 
breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat ; and thou 
didst drink the pure blood of the grape.— Deut. XXXII. 6—14. 

These words delineate with great beauty of imagery 
the general course of the Divine dispensations towards 
ancient Israel. Susceptible as they are of a ready 
adaptation to our own country, they suggest some 
of the various causes for gratitude to the Supreme 
Disposer of events, which should animate our hearts 
2 



6 THE UNION. 

as we assemble in our sanctuaries on this Day of 
Thanksgiving. But they also intimate (if we choose 
thus to appropriate the passage to ourselves) that Ave 
are in danger of perverting and losing the munificent 
blessings Providence has conferred upon us. There 
is, I fear, but too much occasion for this warning. 
The pulpit should be very slow to give countenance 
or currency to topics calculated to excite or alarm the 
public mind ; but where the Union itself is in jeopardy, 
both patriotism and religion forbid that it should re- 
main silent. In the judgment of discreet and upright 
men of all parties, a crisis of this kind has now arrived. 
And, indeed, the indications of it are so palpable that 
he only who shuts his eyes can fail to see them. 

Up to a period quite within the recollection of the 
young men before me, the atrocious word. Disunion, 
was never uttered in any part of the Republic but 
with abhorrence. The universal sentiment was that 
the Union of these States was to be maintained at all 
hazards — that it was not a question to be discussed — 
and that any individual who should presume to im- 
pugn its sacred obligation would be justly chargeable 
with moral treason, and ought to be regarded as an 
enemy to his country. This wholesome public senti- 
ment has been for several years past gradually giving 
way. Our ears have become familiarized to the word, 
Disunion. A protracted session of Congress has been 
consumed in discussing the thing itself One State is 
at this moment almost on the verge of secession. 
Others are threatening it. And a large and vigilant 



THE UNION". / 

party elsewhere are pressing favorite measures with 
the full conviction that, if they succeed in carrying 
them, the Union must and will be riven asunder. 
Under these circumstances, the pulpit may no more 
keep silence than the press. "We have the same civil 
rights as other citizens; and we do not mean lightly 
to surrender them. But aside from this, the interests 
of religion in this country are in some sort confided 
to the keeping of the jMinistry : and Christianity — not 
Christianity for our own land merely, but for the world, 
and for all coming generations of mankind — has so 
much at stake in the American Union, that, if we 
should refuse to co-operate with our fellow-citizens in 
all legitimate measures for the preservation of that 
Union, we should be recreant to the Master we pro- 
fess to serve, and unfit to minister at his altar. 

In the original manuscript of Washington's Fare- 
well Address, there is the following paragraph par- 
tially erased. "With the exception of the last sentence, 
it was rejected by him ; but no apology will be needed 
for citing it on an occasion like the present : " Besides 
the more serious causes already hinted as threatening 
our Union, there is one less dangerous, but sufficiently 
dangerous to make it prudent to be on our guard 
against it. I allude to the petulance of party difier- 
ences of opinion. It is not uncommon to hear the 
irritations which these excite, vent themselves in 
declarations that the different parts of the United 
States are ill aJBfected to each other, in menaces that 
the Union will be dissolved by this, or that measure. 



Q THE UOTON". 

Intimations like these are as indiscreet as they are 
intemperate. Though frequently made with levity, 
and without any really evil intention, they have a 
tendency to produce the consequence which they in- 
dicate. They teach the minds of men to consider the 
Union as precarious; as an object to which they ought 
not to attach their hopes and fortunes ; and thus chill 
the sentiment in its favor. By alarming the pride of 
those to whom they are addressed, they set ingenuity 
at work to depreciate the value of the thing, and to 
discover reasons of indifference towards it. This is 
not wise. — It will be much wiser to habituate our- 
selves to reverence the Union as the Palladium of our 
National happiness; to accommodate constantly our 
words and actions to that idea, and to discountenance 
whatever may suggest a suspicion that it can in any 
event be abandoned." 

It may be doubted whether this paragraph would 
not have been retained, could Washington have 
foreseen the events which are passing before our eyes. 
For there is a tone of remark now prevalent on this 
subject which indicates a wide-spread and perhaps 
growing disposition to calculate the value of the 
Union. That such a problem should in any quarter 
be seriously entertained — that it should not, on 
being propounded, be as summarily and indignantly 
thrust away as the question would be, whether we 
shall not replace our present form of government with a 
monarchy — is symptomatic of a decay of that pure and 
lofty patriotism which once throbbed in every Ame- 



THE UNION". 9 

rican breast. Certain it is that those who can degrade 
a theme like this to the computations of a mere com- 
mercial arithmetic, and resolve the value of the Union 
as they would adjust a marine venture, or the cost of 
a cotton-mill, have never even begun to comprehend 
the extraordinary -ihain of events which led to the 
establishment of this Union, the gigantic difficulties 
which opposed its formation, the manifold blessings 
which have resulted from it, and the legionary evils 
which would be produced by its destruction. A pro- 
per discussion of these several topics in a temperate 
and able manner might well engage the leisure of 
some one of our eminent statesmen at the present 
juncture, and could not fail to have a salutary influ- 
ence on the nation at large. I propose simply to 
recall your attention to the origin of the Union, and 

SOME of the more OBVIOUS CONSEQUENCES WHICH WOULD 
BE LIKELY TO FLOW FROM ITS DISSOLUTION that WO may 

the better understand what it is that certain parties 
are proposing to accomplish. 

The observation has been often made, that the 
whole current of events connected with the settle- 
ment of America, and the grow^th of the Colonies, re- 
veals a purpose on the part of Divine Providence to 
found, in this Western Hemisphere, a model govern- 
ment. They were no ordinary men who were sent 
here to lay the foundations of an empire in a wilder- 
ness tenanted by wild beasts and savages. No nation 
can boast a more honorable ancestry than that which 



10 THE UNION. 

comprises the Puritans, the Huguenots, and the Qua- 
kers, who fled to this continent, that they might enjoy 

" Freedom to worship God." 

The seeding of the soil gave promise of a rare and 
generous harvest; and amply was the pledge re- 
deemed. They knew not the exalted mission en- 
trusted to them ; it was impossible, without the gift of 
foresight, that they should have known it. But it is 
easy for us to see that, during the entire period of 
their colonial state, they were preparing for the work 
before them. In their privations and dangers, their 
sicknesses and wars, their mutual rivalries and quar- 
rels; in the unnatural neglect and flagrant oppression 
with which they were treated by the parent govern- 
ment; in the sagacity, enterprise, firmness, and cou- 
rage which their circumstances helped to develop ; and 
in the continual accession to their numbers of men of 
kindred principles, who were driven from the old 
world by persecution or tyranny — we can detect a 
superhuman agency, which was moulding and strength- 
ening them for the scenes of the Eevolution, and the 
responsibilities involved in its successful termination. 
These, it is important to remember, demanded a train- 
ing no less peculiar than the Revolution itself. It is 
too commonly taken for granted that, with the Peace 
of '83, all danger was over; that the auspicious issue 
of our contest with the mother country was tanta- 
mount to the creation of a free and powerful Republic. 
In a word, that, as soon as their battles were ended, 



THE UNION. 11 

and the chains of their colonial vassalage broken, our 
fathers had but to sit down in quiet and enjoy the 
benign protection of that glorious Union which has, 
under Providence, made us the most prosperous nation 
on the globe. This is not only an utter misconception 
of the facts in the case ; but it is adapted to disparage 
the wisdom and patriotism of the men of the Revolu- 
tion, and to impair our reverence for the Union itself 
It is scarcely going beyond the truth to say that their 
work was but half accomplished with the close of their 
last campaign. They had severed their allegiance to 
the crown ; but they had no adequate government of 
their own, and they were in a situation most unfavor- 
able for the establishment of one. The Union, that 
is, such a Union as their necessities demanded, was 
so far from evolving itself spontaneously from the 
chaos which succeeded the war, that the wisest and 
best men among them entertained the most anxious 
apprehensions as to the possibility of effecting it at 
all. " It may be in me," said one of them,'-== a man 
whose comprehensive and penetrating intellect re- 
solved the abstrusest theprems in political science as 
by intuition, and who could express his profound and 
luminous views in a style which would scarcely suffer 
by a comparison with that of Junius — " It may be 
in me a defect of political fortitude, but I acknowledge 
that I cannot entertain an equal tranquillity with those 
who affect to treat the dangers of a longer continu- 

* Mr. Hamilton. 



12 THE UNION". 

ance in our present situation as imaginary. A nation 
without a national Government is an awful spectacle. 
The establishment of a Coiistitution in time of pro- 
found peace, by the voluntary consent of a whole 
people, is a Prodigy, to the completion of which I 
look forward with trembling anxiety. I dread the 
more the consequences of new attempts, because I 
know that powerful individuals in this State [New 
York] and other States, are enemies to a general 
national Government in every possible shape." 

In a similar strain, General Washington, at an ear- 
lier period, two years after the Treaty of Peace, wrote 
to Mr. Jay : " What astonishing changes a few years 
are capable of producing ! I am told that even respect- 
able characters speak of a monarchical form of govern- 
ment without horror. From thinking proceeds speak- 
ing : thence to acting is often but a single step. But 
how irrevocable and tremendous ! What a triumph 
for our enemies, to verify their predictions ! What a 
triumph for the advocates of despotism, to find that 
we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that 
systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are 
merely ideal and fallacious ! Would to God that wise 
measures may be taken in time to avert the conse- 
quences we have but too much reason to apprehend !" 

The old Confederation would have been too weak 
even for the purposes of war in any other hands than 
those of the pure and able men who were called to 
conduct the Revolution. And when the outward 
pressure was removed, and the colonies fell back 



THE UNION. 13 

under the sway of their several local usages and 
interests, the compact which united them proved to 
be but a rope of sand. The condition of the country 
waxed worse and worse, until it seemed to be on the 
verge of some terrible catastrophe. The war had 
dried up its resources. The governmeut was encum- 
bered with a debt which it had no means of paying. 
Commerce was at the lowest point of declension. 
The colonies, oppressed by their necessities, and more 
solicitous to retrieve their own fortunes than those 
of the Union, refused the supplies of money which 
were indispensable to the efiiciency of the Confedera- 
tion, and even to its prolonged existence. The Go- 
vernment was the very picture of imbecility ; without 
troops, without a revenue, without credit, without 
power to enforce its laws at home, or to inspire respect 
abroad. And the reciprocal jealousies of the colonies, 
reviving with the return of peace, afforded little 
ground to hope that any scheme of union could be 
devised in which they would all, or even a major part 
of them, coalesce. The defects of the existing league 
were too palpable to be denied ; but the most discord- 
ant opinions prevailed as to the appropriate remedy. 
This may be seen in the multiform objections which 
were made to the new Constitution when it came to 
be submitted to the States for their adoption. Not to 
speak of the monarchical party alluded to by General 
Washington, and which was probably very small, 
the following may be taken as a sample of these 
objections—" This one tells us that the Constitution 



14 THE UNION". 

ought to be rejected, because it is not a Confederation 
of the States, but a government over individuals. 
Another admits that it ought to be a government 
over individuals to a certain extent, but not to the 
extent proposed. A third objects to the want of a 
bill of riglits. A fourth would have a bill of rights, 
but would have it declaratory not of the personal 
rights of individuals, but of the rights reserved to the 
States in their political capacity. A fifth thinks the 
plan would be unexceptionable but for the fatal power 
of regulating the times and places of election. An 
objector in a large State exclaims loudly against the 
unreasonable equality of representation in the Senate. 
An objector in a small State is equally loud against 
the dangerous inequality in the House of Repre- 
sentatives. From one quarter the amazing expense 
of administering the new government is urged ; from 
another the cry is that the Congress will be but a 
shadow of a representation, and that the government 
would be far less objectionable if the number and 
the expense were doubled. A patriot in a State 
that does not import discerns insuperable objections 
against the power of direct taxation. The patriotic 
adversary in a State of great exports and imports is 
not less dissatisfied that the whole burthen of taxes 
may be thrown on consumption. This politician 
discovers in the Constitution a direct and irresistible 
tendency to monarchy; that is equally sure it will 
end in aristocracy."* But it would be wearisome to 

* Mr. Madison. 



THE UNION. 15 

go on with this catalogue, and cite the objections 
urged against the instrument as a whole, and those 
advanced against the specific provisions appertaining 
severally to the legislative, the judicial, and the ex- 
ecutive departments. Enough has been said to show 
that the convention which assembled to frame a 
Constitution had an herculean task to perform ; and 
that, without the special illumination of Divine Provi- 
dence, they must have essayed in vain to frame an 
instrument which should unite in its support the 
sufirages of a majority of the States. 

It is an additional consideration of great weight, 
bearing upon this point, that they were without a 
model. There was no existing government which they 
were willing to copy. There was no government of 
antiquity which would at all answer their purpose. 
They were, in truth, not only in advance of their own 
age, but of all ages, in their ideas of civil govern- 
ment. We may apply to them what Milton has said 
of the Hebrew prophets : they appear 

"As men divinely taught, and better teaching 
The solid rules of civil government, 
In their majestic, unaffected style, 
TRan all the oratory of Greece and Rome ; 
In them is plainest taught and easiest learnt, 
What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so." 

The concise instrument drawn up and signed in 
the cabin of the May Flower, was the charter of 
an embryo Gommomoealtli. It recognizes the great 
principle of equality, and the right and duty of the 
" civil body politic," into which the signers organized 



16 THE UNION. 

themselves, to " enact, constitute, and frame such just 
and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and 
offices, as should be thought most convenient for the 
general good of the colony." This germ expanded. It 
derived nurture from the alternate indifference and 
tyranny of the home government. The colonists, not 
of Massachusetts only, but of Virginia and the other 
provinces, were compelled to act for themselves. 
They came to regard the " general good," not the honor 
of a throne, or the aggrandizement of an aristocracy, 
as the proper end of government ; and ^'^just and equal 
laivs" as the legitimate means by which this end was 
to be promoted. Long before their difficulties with 
the crown reached their crisis, these ideas had become 
as familiar to their minds as household words. They 
were very unlike the prevailing ideas in the Old 
World. They found no place in the constitutions of 
the most liberal monarchies. Political equality — popu- 
lar suffrage — equal laws — the right of the majority to 
govern — the greatest good of the greatest number as 
the end of government, — these were principles which, 
however they might be entertained by individuals, 
had yet for the first time to be enacted, oj? even re- 
cognized by any European monarchy. And when 
with these principles is combined another of no less 
importance, that of a representative republic, we 
shall search in vain for any adequate exposition 
of their views even among the so-called republics 
of ancient or modern times. It shows an extraor- 
dinary elevation of mind, and a moral courage stamped 



THE UXION. 17 

with true sublimity, that they should have suc- 
ceeded in divesting themselves of the intolerable 
thraldom of precedent and authority, and dared to 
lay the foundations of their new structure on prin- 
ciples which no other government had made trial of, 
or which had certainly never been tested in such 
combinations as were now contemplated. These 
principles alone, however, were suited to the emer- 
gency, and they applied them with a trustful fortitude 
and a profound wisdom which have never ceased 
(unless they have noio ceased) to elicit the gratitude 
of their posterity, and the admiration of enlightened 
and liberal statesmen in all lands. 

Without stopping to illustrate these points in detail, 
let us advert for a moment to that great principle of 
a representative republic which they invoked to har- 
monize the conflicting rights and interests of the colo- 
nies. Our minds are so familiar with this principle 
that we are scarcely in a position to apjDreciate the 
wisdom which guided the convention to the discovery 
of it (for it was a discovery), and led them to adopt 
it as the core of the new Constitution. They were to 
create a Government or Governments for the colonies. 
Putting monarchy out of the question, these plans 
were before them : 1st. Consolidation ; the dissolution 
of the thirteen Provincial or State Governments, and 
a general amalgamation under one republican char- 
ter. 2dly. Consolidation in the form of a pure 
democracy, odly. The organization of thirteen en- 
tirely independent Governments — republican or demo- 



18 THE UNIOX. 

cratic. ^thly. A simple Confederation of thirteen 
sovereignties. 

These were the only models to be found in the 
annals of the world. All Governments not mo- 
narchical had conformed to one or another of these 
types : and yet the statesmen of the Revolution had 
the sagacity to see that they were alike either imprac- 
ticable or utterly insufficient for their purposes. Con- 
solidation was out of the question ; the colonies would 
not consent to merge their individual existence in a 
single organization. A pure democracy was impracti- 
cable even for the States as such. A democracy 
requires the periodical convocation of the entire body 
of the citizens, to conduct its legislation, and is of 
course admissible only in the case of States comprising 
a very limited territory. This was a favorite scheme of 
a party after the war; and to elude the difficulty just 
stated, they were for dividing the larger colonies into 
districts of a tractable size. The creation of thirteen 
isolated sovereignties would have been the sure pre- 
cursor and occasion of dissensions and wars. Nor 
would a simple Confederation of such a cluster of sove- 
reignties, the scheme which was advocated by many of 
the most patriotic and influential men of the nation, 
have been essentially better. Such a Confederation 
already existed. Its inadequacy was matter of experi- 
ence. No modification would be of any avail which 
came short of curing its radical vice, to wit, that of pro- 
viding " legislation for States or Governments in their 
corporate or collective capacities, and as contradistin- 



THE UNION. 19 

guished from the individuals of whom they consist." 
So long as this principle was retained, the States might 
be bound together in a league, but there could be no 
national Union. Nor would a general government 
be able to enforce its decrees at home or to protect 
its foreign interests, if the execution of its mandates 
were made contingent upon the legislation of other 
independent sovereignties.'-' A new principle was, 
therefore, needed to meet the exigencies of the case ; 
and it was found in that of a representative republic. 
The sovereignty of the several States was left unim- 
paired in respect to all matters of local jurisdiction, 
while the Federal Government, springing no less 
directly than the State governments from the bosom 
of the people, and operating no less directly upon the 
people, was clothed with the functions requisite for 
the efficient administration of all interests appertaining 
to the general welfare of the Republic. Thus was 
the great problem solved. From the confusion and 
distraction, the imbecility and exhaustion, the con- 
flicting theories and rivalries, of these emancipated 
provinces, emerged the Union, clothed with majesty 
and honor, radiant with celestial beauty, her temples 
bound w^ith a perennial olive-wreath, and her hands 
filled with such blessings for the expectant people as 
no nation but God's chosen one had ever dreamed of. 
Tyrants looked upon her and gnashed their teeth 
with rage. The patriots of every land hailed her 

* See these points argued in the Federalist. 



20 THE UNION. 

advent as the rising of a second sun in the heavens. 
The down-trodden nations of Europe found hfe and 
hope even in her far-off smile. And as her magic 
influence penetrated their dungeons, the martyrs of 
liberty felt their chains lightened, and blessed God 
that, although their efforts had failed, one nation had 
at length established its freedom. It was in truth 
the triumph, the first great triumph, of Constitu- 
tional Liberty. The records of mankind supplied 
no parallel to it ; and it was a fitting occasion for a 
jubilee among the friends of human progress of every 
creed and country. 

This cursory glance at the difficulties which were 
surmounted in the formation of our government may 
serve to enhance our appreciation of the Union, and 
to invigorate our gratitude to the men who founded it. 
A nobler race of men, or one who have a stronger 
claim upon the affectionate veneration of mankind, 
the world has never seen. It is impossible that they 
should be forgotten so long as integrity, patriotism, 
and public virtue, have a being among men. Their 
names (to borrow the sublime tribute of Daniel Web- 
ster to John Hancock — a tribute which we may even 
now appropriate to the great orator himself) have 
a place as bright and glorious in the admiration 
of mankind, " as if they had been written in letters 
of light on the blue arch of heaven, between Orion 
and the Pleiades." Certain it is that if we ever cease to 
do them honor or to cherish the work of their hands, 
we shall deserve the execration of all future genera- 



THE UNIOX. 21 

tions. For, whatever specious objections may liave 
been urged against the Constitution at the period of 
its adoption, it is not with us an open question 
whether that immortal instrument was framed with 
all the wisdom which has been claimed for it, and 
whether it is adequate to the purposes for which it 
was designed. The seal of more than sixty years is 
now upon it, and its results are known and read of 
all men. In the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, in 
London, is the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren, the 
architect of that noble structure, and the felicitous 
inscription upon it runs thus : " Reader, if you seeh his 
monument, looh around !" So we may say of our Consti- 
tution. If you would estimate its value, look around I 

" How many States, 
And clustering towns, and monuments of fame, 
And scenes of glorious deeds." 

Contrast the thirteen colonies of the Revolution 
with our thirty-one States. And then contrast the 
Republic as a wdiole with any other, even the most 
prosperous, empires of the globe. I give utterance 
only to one of our familiar common-places, when I 
say, that whether we regard the increase of its popu- 
lation, the development of its resources, the augmen- 
tation of its wealth, its power, and its influence among 
the nations, or the steady progress of its people in all 
the arts of a refined civilization, the history of this 
country is unexampled in the annals of our race. 
Without wishing to chime in with that strain of self- 
complacent declamation which has made so many 
3 



22 THE UNION. 

Fourth of July orations an offence to cultivated ears, 
the occasion not only authorizes but compels me to 
say, that there is no people on the earth so free as we 
are ; none who possess such an affluence of all the im- 
munities and appliances, social and political, secular 
and religious, essential to the plenary enjoyment of all 
personal rights, and to the greatest good of the great 
mass of the nation. To prove this w^ould be a work 
of supererogation. If any man can "look around" 
and doubt it, he has mistaken his country, and should 
transfer his domicil to a more congenial clime. 

Nor is the extraordinary growth of the United 
States in all the elements which constitute the true 
greatness and glory of a nation more indisputable 
than is the fact that we have been steadily opposed 
by most of the leading cabinets of Europe, and espe- 
cially by the whole moral influence of the British Go- 
vernment and aristocracy. England has never for- 
given us the Declaration of Independence. Whether 
it is because this Union is a standing memento of her 
folly and misgovernment, or because she is jealous of 
a daughter whose ships and spindles compete with her 
own in the markets of the globe, certain it is that 
she has always looked upon us with an evil eye. No 
maternal pride has ever betrayed her into a spontane- 
ous burst of admiration at the enterprise, the intel- 
lio-ence, and the moral worth of her transatlantic 
offspring. When James the Second, one of her faith- 
less kings, whom she drove in indignation from his 
throne, overlooked from the French coast the great 



THE UNIOX. 23 

naval action of La Hogiie, and saw the British, after 
putting to flight that imposing squadron with which 
all his hopes were embarked, pursue their enemy 
in boats into the very shallows, and set fire to 
the ships which would otherwise have escaped, he 
could not restrain his admiration of their gallantry, 
but cried out, "Ah, none but my brave English could 
do this !" But no such paroxysm of generosity has 
ever overcome our venerable mother in contemplating 
this fair country. Instead of exclaiming, as she has 
marked the gradual transition of this vast wilderness 
into a cultivated continent, covered with towns and 
cities, and smiling harvests, "None but my brave 
children could have done this!" she has systemati- 
cally detracted from our just fame, and disparaged 
our achievements. Allowing for individual excep- 
tions, the tone of her press (not to speak of other 
indices of her feeling) has been marked with an 
illiberality and acerbity towards us which nothing 
could justify. Her journalists and tourists have set 
themselves to misrepresent and depreciate our insti- 
tutions. From her stately Quarterlies down to the 
humblest hebdomadal repositories of provincial wit and 
wisdom, they have exerted their ten talents or their one 
talent, as the case might be, to cast ridicule upon our 
public acts and monuments, upon our civil franchises, 
our manners, our literature, our very roads and 
vehicles, and the whole working of our political and 
social systems. They have done what they could to 
make the impression in Europe that our great " ex- 



24 THE UNIOJ^. 

perimeiit" was a failure; that there was no security 
here for life and property ; that anarchy and semi- 
l^arbarisni were already rampant ; and that the Union 
must presently fall to pieces. And how has the 
country heeded these unworthy demonstrations ? 
Precisely as a loaded train heeds the straws which 
sportive children scatter on the rails ; or as an eagle 
heeds the pellets of mud cast after him as he soars 
upwards on his mighty pinions towards the sun. The 
country has advanced with a constantly accelerated 
momentum, which has at least changed the contempt 
of its maligners into the dignity of hatred. And 
neither defamatory presses nor official decrees, neither 
standing armies nor a domiciliary espionage, nor all 
these combined, have been able to conceal the truth 
from the simple-minded peasantry and the degraded 
operatives of Europe. Alike in their pestiferous work- 
shops and in their remote mountain chalets, the name 
of the United States is a talisman to them. The 
salutation, "I am an American citizen," is the best 
passport a stranger can have to their confidence. 
Often have I seen their eyes sparkle on hearing it ; 
and the sight made me proud of my country. It was 
the boast of the ancient Roman that the watch-word, 
" I am a Roman citizen," would secure him personal 
respect throughout the known world. But it was 
the dread of the imperial eagles which insured his 
safety. No such sentiment protects the American 
abroad. It is not the inspiration of fear, but of love, 
which lights up the countenances of the common 



THE UNION. 25 

people at his approach. They know little of politics, 
and less of geography. They have read but few 
books. They could give no very lucid account of this 
country. But they have these two ideas about it 
inwrought into their minds, viz., that it is a free coun- 
try, and that the people are comfortable and con- 
tented. This makes it a land of hope to them. This 
makes them long to get here. This constitutes the 
subtle, mysterious influence which has gone out from 
our Union into all the hamlets and all the mines and 
forges of Europe ; and which is drawing their tenantry 
towards us with an agency as irresistible as that 
which keeps the needle to the pole. This it was 
which made an honest, truthful peasant, who lived in 
one of those lofty vallej^s at the base of Mont Blanc, 
say to a party of Americans, a year or two since : 
" Not less than two hundred of my neighbors have 
gone from this small valley to your country, and 
nothing but the want of means keeps me from follow- 
ing them." I say again, I Avas proud to hear it. 
These unbought testimonies to the all-pervading and 
blessed influence of my country — testimonies picked 
up b}^ the wayside, and by the cotter's hearth, and 
the shepherd's fold, from reapers, and wagoners, and 
guides, and laborers — are worth more than all the 
studied compliments ever bestowed upon America by 
courtly diplomatists. It is something to belong to a 
land which looms up in this way before all nations, 
as a land of peace and plenty, of virtue and safety — 
as an asylum where the oppressed may find a refuge 



26 THE UNION. 

from tyranny, and the poor the amplest scope and 
encouragement for frugal industry. It is something 
to belong to a land which is known wherever the foot 
of civilized man has trod, not by her Caasars and 
Napoleons, not by her bloody wars and conquests, but 
by her Washington s and Franklins, her civil and 
religious liberty, her equal laws, and her thriving 
populations. That such a land should draio upon the 
Old World is not surprising. The philosophy of the 
fact is sufficiently simple, and it was set forth by one 
of the illustrious orators of the Eevolution with a 
felicity which is equalled only by his extraordinary 
prophetic announcement of the fact itself Imme- 
diately after the close of the Revolution, Patrick 
Henry delivered a speech of great power in the As- 
sembly of Virginia in favor of a liberal policy on the 
subject of immigration. Contrasting the expanse of 
our territory with the scanty population, he observed, 
" Your great want, sir, is the want of men, and these 
you must have, and will have speedily, if you are 
wise. Do you ask, how are you to get them ? Open 
your doors, sir, and they will come in ; the population 
of the Old World is full to overflowing; that population 
is ground, too, by the oppressions of the governments 
under which they live. Sir, they are already stand- 
ing on tip-toe upon their native shores, and looking 
to your coasts with a wishful and longing eye ; they 
see here a land blessed with natural and political 
advantages, which are not equalled by those of any 
other country upon earth; a land on which a gracious 



THE UNION". 27 

Providence hath emptied the horn of abundance; a 
land over which Peace hath now stretched forth her 
white wings, and where Content and Plenty lie down 
at every door! Sir, they see something still more 
attractive than all this ; they see a land in which 
Liberty hath taken up her abode ; that Liberty whom 
they had considered as a fabled goddess, existing only 
in the fancies of poets; they see her here a real 
divinity, her altars rising on every hand throughout 
these happy States, her glories chanted by three mil- 
lions of tongues, and the whole region smiling under 
her blessed influence. Sir, let but this celestial god- 
dess. Liberty, stretch forth her fair hand toward the 
people of the Old World, tell them to come, and bid 
them w^elcome ; and you will see them pouring in 
from the north, from the south, from the east, and 
from the west; your wilderness will be cleared and 
settled, your deserts will smile, your ranks will be 
filled ; and you will soon be in a condition to defy the 
powers of any adversary." Liberty did "stretch forth 
her hand towards the Old World," and this eloquent 
prophecy glided into history. The three millions 
who chanted her glories have now become twenty- 
five millions ; and the mighty current of humanity is 
setting towards our shores with a depth and a majesty 
which are enough to awe every thoughtful beholder. 
There are various aspects, economical, political, and 
religious, in which this imposing movement may be 
viewed. The twofold object for wliich it is cited 
here is to illustrate, on the one hand, the unprece- 



28 THE UNION. 

dented growth of our country ; and, on the other, the 
Antsean hold which this Union has taken upon the 
other hemisphere. Without restricting the remark 
to this wonderful migration from the Old World to the 
New, we are safe in affirming that the sublime spec- 
tacle of a self-governed and well-governed nation has 
told with prodigious effect upon the dynasties of Eu- 
rope. For "the greatest engine of moral power 
known to human affairs is an organized, prosperous 
State. All that man in his individual capacity can 
(io — all that he can effect by his private fraternities, 
by his ingenious discoveries and wonders of art, or by 
his influence over others — is as nothing, compared 
with the collective, perpetuated influence on human 
affairs and human happiness of a well-constituted, 
powerful commonwealth. It blesses generations with 
its sweet influence. Even the barren earth seems to 
pour out its fruits under a system where rights and 
property are secure ; whilst her fairest gardens are 
blighted by despotism."* Such an example has been 
before the world for more than half a century; and 
while it is impossible to trace the influences which 
have gone out from it upon the other hemisphere, all 
parties are agreed that it has had a most effective 
agency in bringing about the ameliorating changes 
which have taken place in the European Govern- 
ments. The reforms in those governments, which 
have consisted essentially in raising the people from a 

* Mr. Edward Everett. 



THE UNION, 29 

condition of political nonentity to a substantive power 
in the State, have drawn their animating breath and 
derived their most effective support from the prece- 
dent supplied by these United States. If the Nessel- 
rodes and Metternichs of the day are competent 
witnesses, this country has been the great laboratory 
from whence "liberal ideas" have been continually 
flitting across the ocean and disturbing the Dead Sea 
tranquillity of the venerable despotisms of Europe. 
The extent to which these ideas have permeated the 
masses there is really surprising, when one considers 
the vigilance and severity with which tyranny every- 
where guards its usurpations. Many a generous 
struggle has proved abortive, and hecatombs of brave 
but unfortunate patriots have been immolated to the 
Moloch of absolutism ; but the cause of freedom has 
on the whole advanced. The nations are not where 
they were at the commencement of this century ; and 
unless we betray our trust, and extinguish the light 
which now allures them on to freedom, there is little 
likelihood that they will ever consent to resume their 
chains. If we guard this vestal flame upon which so 
many anxious eyes are turned, the political renova- 
tion of the world must go on. Other lands will be 
emancipated, and the prophetic vision so beautifully 
depicted by the poet will be realized : — 

" I saw the expecting regions stand, 
To catch the coming flame in turn ; 
I saw from ready hand to hand 

The bright but struggling glory burn. 



OU THE UNION. 

And each, as she received the flame, 

Lighted her altar with its ray ; 
Then, smiling to the next who came. 

Speeded it on its sparkling way."* 

No man who believes that there is a Providence 
can take even a brief retrospect of our history, like 
that Mhicli has now engaged our attention, Avith- 
out discovering innumerable evidences of his benig- 
nant agency. He who does not see a Divine hand 
directing and controlling the whole course of our 
affairs, from the landing of the colonists at James- 
town and Plymouth until the present hour, would 
hardly have seen the pillar of cloud and of fire had 
he been with the Hebrews in the wilderness. This 
Union is not the work of man. It is the work of God. 
Among the achievements of his wisdom and benefi- 
cence in conducting the secular concerns of the world, 
it must be ranked as one of his greatest and best 
works. And he who would destroy it is chargeable 
with the impiety of attempting to subvert a structure 
which is eminently adapted to illustrate the perfec- 
tions of the Deity, and to bless the whole family of 
man. 

There are, however — the fact cannot be disguised — 
parties actually at work in endeavoring to destroy 
the Union. A party at the South and another party 
at the North, the poles apart in their speculative 

* I am indebted to Mr. Everett for this beautiful quotation. 



THE UNIOIf. 31 

views of the subject which agitates them, and inflamed 
with a bitter mutual hostility, have virtually joined 
hands for the purpose of demolishing this Govern- 
ment. This is not, indeed, as to one of these parties, 
the ostensible object they have in view; but it is 
essentially involved in that object, and they know it. 
They must, therefore, be held to the responsibility of 
aiming at a dissolution of the Union, equally with 
those inhabitants of the Southern States who avow 
this as their aim. 

The subject which has occasioned this commotion 
is Slavery. The Southern Disunionists would secede 
because Congress, at its late session, passed certain 
acts abridging, as they allege, the rights of the slave- 
holding States ; and the Northern Disunionists insist 
upon the repeal of a law passed at the same time, 
entitled the Fugitive Slave Law, even though its 
abrogation should involve a dissolution of the Union. 
My business as a Northern man, and a citizen of a 
free State, is with the latter of these parties, or rather 
with the North generally. In the few observations 
I am about to make on the subject, I shall simply 
reiterate sentiments which have been so often and so 
eloquently expressed both in Congress and out of it, 
that they have become familiar to every well-informed 
citizen. But I may say that the man who can put 
the American Union, with all its untold and incon- 
ceivable blessings, into one scale, and the repeal of 
the Fugitive Slave Law into the other, and then 
strike the balance in favor of the latter, is without an 



32 THE UNION. 

exemplar in the history of the race until we get back 
to the record of that primeval tempter who said to 
our first mother, " Ye shall not surely die." 

" She pluck'd, she eat ! 
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat, 
Sighing thro' all her works, gave signs of woe, 
That all was lost !" 

In saying this, I utterlj^ disclaim any design to be- 
come the champion of Slavery. I have never set my- 
self to defend it ; and by the grace of God I never will. 
I concur in the estimate which is put upon it by the 
people of the North, and by tens of thousands of our 
Southern countrymen, that it is a colossal evil ; and 
that no consummation is more devoutly to be wished 
and prayed for than its removal. But I can as little 
undertake the championship of Northern agitators 
and fanatics as that of Slavery. I believe they are 
the worst enemies of the slave, and the most efficient 
protectors of Slavery; and as such, I can have no 
fellowship with them. The law to which they object 
may be, or it may not be, defective or unjust in some 
of its provisions. If it is, it will no doubt at the 
proper time be amended ; if it is not, it will stand. 
But Avhat we are called upon to discountenance is 
the spirit in which this excitement is promoted — the 
recklessness and violence with which the uncondi- 
tional repeal of the obnoxious law is demanded, irre- 
spective of consequences — the abusive attacks which 
are constantly made upon the South — and the whole 
system of measures put in operation to alienate the 



THE UNION-. OD 

two 2301'tions of the confederacy, and bring about a 
disruption. 

However the fact may be contemned by the radical 
Abolitionists, it behooves us all to remember, what 
even the cursory retrospect presented in this discourse 
must have made sufficiently manifest, that the Union 
of these States was a matter of compromise. Ob- 
structed as it was by the most serious impediments, it 
could never have been effected had not all the parties 
concerned been animated by a rare spirit of accom- 
modation. General Washington, in submitting the 
draft of the new Constitution to Congress, thus ex- 
presses himself in his official letter as the President of 
the Convention : " In all our deliberations on this 
subject, we kept steadily in our view that which ap- 
pears to us the greatest interest of every true Ame- 
rican, the consolidation of our Union, in which is 
involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our 
national existence. This important consideration, 
seriously and deeply impressed on our minds, led 
each State in the Convention to be less rigid on points 
of inferior magnitude than might have been other- 
wise expected ; and thus the Constitution which we 
now present is the result of a spirit of amity, and of 
that mutual deference and concession which the pecu- 
liarity of our political situation rendered indispensa- 
ble." 

In this spirit the Union originated, and in this 
spirit it has, under God's blessing, been preserved. 
On all the most important measures of the government, 



34 THE UNION". 

the country lias been divided into two great parties. 
We have passed through various crises, which have 
tested the loyalty of one party or of the other, as 
the case might be, as in a fiery furnace. Take for 
example the following measures : Jay's Treaty — the 
Embargo — the War of 1812 — the Missouri question — 
the Nullification controversy — the admission of Texas 
— and the Mexican War. Each of these measures was 
highly offensive to a large portion of the American 
people. The legislation of Congress was, in some of 
the cases, resisted by Statesmen of the most eminent 
abilities, as being in the face of the Constitution and 
destructive to our best interests. But when the acts 
were passed, the law-abiding spirit of the Anglo-Saxon 
race began to work, and all parties acquiesced. We 
have a striking illustration of this in one of the most 
recent of the measures just mentioned, the admission 
of Texas. The major part of the population in the 
free States regarded this, in the manner in which it 
was done, as a gross invasion of the Constitution. A 
distinguished citizen of South Carolina, formerly Go- 
vernor of that State, has remarked, in a letter recently 
published, that "the admission of Texas furnished a 
far greater provocation to the North to secede, than 
the admission of California does to the South, Avith 
the auxiliary stipulations incident to the former."* 
But we did not secede. Nobody talked of seceding, 
except the party who are driving at disunion now. 

* General James Hamilton's Letter to the People of South Carolina. 



THE UNION. do 

The sober sense and enlightened patriotism of the mass 
of the people, fortified by sixty years' experience, have 
taught them the necessity of forbearance, and made 
them feel that it is far better to submit even to what 
they believe to be wrong and hurtful measures than to 
break up the Union. They have no notion of setting 
the ship on fire because the captain deals out some 
oppressive orders. They choose rather to wait till 
the ship returns to port, and then, if they can, get a 
new captain. — In this spirit the compromise measures 
of the last session ought to be treated. They were 
not party measures, for none of the recognized parties 
was, as such, satisfied with them. But they supplied 
the only platform on which men of all parties could 
meet ; and this is a sufficient reason why the country 
should acquiesce in them. 

That a statute respecting fugitive slaves should form 
a part of this series of pacificatory measures, was a 
thing of course. One of the chief compromises of the 
Constitution itself relates to this very subject. The 
South would not come into the Union without some 
guarantee on this point, and the following section 
(Art. IV. Sect. 2) was adopted by the Convention — 
I believe unanimously. " No person held to service 
or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escap- 
ing into another, shall, in consequence of any law or 
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or 
labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party 
to whom such service or labor may be due." A law 
was enacted under Washington's administration, and 



'36 THE UNION. 

with his approval, to carry this provision of the Con- 
stitution into effect.* This law had of late years 
been rendered nugatory in some of the States by local 
legislation, and it became necessary to replace it with 
another. This is the statute which is now exciting 
so much opposition, and the execution of which has 
been resisted with so much violence. These demon- 
strations, although professedly directed against some 
of the details of the act, are to a great extent levelled 
against its principle. We do the party concerned in 
them no injustice in supposing that they would be 
equally hostile to any adequate law designed to effect 
the same object. In this view, one cannot but be 
struck with the flexible morality which can declaim 
fiercely about the inalienable rights of man, while it 
is trampling under its feet one of the most sacred 
covenants which ever bound a people together. There 
is no difference of op'nion as to the meaning of the 
Constitutional provision on this subject. To that 

^' It must be recorded, to the lasting honor of Pennsylvania, that she 
was the first of the thirteen States to abolish Slavery. This was done 
under the administration of President Heed, in 1780. And it is a cir- 
cumstance worthy of note, that the act embraces a provision for the 
extradition of fugitive slaves. The following is an extract from its 
Eleventh Section : "Provided always, and be it further enacted, that 
this act, or anything in it contained, shall not give any relief or shelter 
to any absconding or runaway negro, or mulatto slave or servant, who 
has absented himself, or shall absent himself, from his or her owner, 
master or mistress, residing in any other State or Country ; but such 
owner, master, or mistress, shall have like right and aid to demand, 
claim, and take away his slave or servant, as he might have had in case 
this act had not been made." 



THE UNION". 37 

provision, in common with the others, our fathers 
assented, and we have assented. It is one of the 
terms of a compact into which we have as a people 
entered with one another; and which is just as bind- 
ing upon us as any other of its provisions. Our 
judgment may condemn it. It may be very revolting 
to our feelings. But this is nothing to the purpose. 
We are under no obligation to remain in a country 
which we believe to be governed by oppressive laws ; 
there is nothing to prevent our flying to any land 
which rejoices in a milder code and a more rational 
liberty. But as long as we continue citizens of this 
Union, we must abide by its Constitution and obey its 
laws.* And we cannot consent to take lessons in 
ethics from those who deny this proposition. The 
first requisite we demand in a teacher of morals is 
that he be a moral man himself And when a cove- 
nant-breaker comes to expound to us our obligations, 
we feel disposed to decline his instructions and to say 
to him, 

"Your nickname, virtue ; vice, you should have spoke ; 
For virtue's office never breaks men's troth." 

To some persons this may sound very unfeeling 
as regards the slave. I will not reply by saying that 
the Apostle Paul thought it no sin to send a fugitive 
back to his master. But this is a case where we are 
not at liberty to take counsel merely of our sympa- 

* It is not necessary, for the purposes of the present argument, to 
state the limitations of this principle. 

4 



38 THE UIs^ION. 

thies. The obligation of contracts is not made con- 
tingent upon men's feelings ; and if this plea was to 
be urged at all, it should have been before the Consti- 
tution was adopted. We do not, however, rest our 
answer, to the objection on this ground only. We are 
not willing to concede a monopoly of all the sj^mpathy 
which is entertained for the bondman to the party 
which is clamoring for an unconditional repeal of the 
Fugitive Slave Law. So far from it, we claim to be 
the truest friends of the slave. We believe that, as 
well for nations and in respect to public affairs, as for 
individuals, " Honesty is the best policy ;" and that 
kindness to the colored race, no less than patriotism, 
demands a faithful adherence on the part of all con- 
cerned to the stipulations of the Constitution. By 
that instrument the exclusive jurisdiction of slavery 
is reserved to the several States. We have no more 
right to dictate to South Carolina what she shall do 
with her slaves than she has to prescribe to Pennsyl- 
vania what railroads we shall construct or what banks 
we shall charter. Nor does the responsibility of her 
system of servitude any more attach to us than does 
the responsibility of the serfdom of Russia. The 
Northern abolitionists (I use the term in its technical 
sense), impressed, it would seem, with a conviction 
that their proper responsibilities, sectional and na- 
tional, secular and spiritual, are not commensurate 
with their capacities, have volunteered to shoulder 
by much the heaviest portion of the obligations resting 
upon the Southern States. The South declines the 



THE UNION. 39 

proffered civility ; but they press their attentions. The 
South remonstrates, on the ground that the contem- 
plated interference would be highly prejudicial to her 
tranquillity ; but her officious friends insist upon it as 
their right to help her manage her private affairs. 
The South at length puts herself in an attitude of 
resistance, and points to the solemn compact in the 
Constitution ; but they reply, with an air of triumph, 
that they are governed by a ^^Idglier law,'' and that 
under that law, it is not only their right but their 
duty to take charge of her slaves. And what have 
they accomplished by this Quixotic generosity ? They 
have riveted the fetters of the slave. They have 
deterred at least three States, Maryland, Virginia, and 
Kentucky, from carrying out the plans of prospective 
emancipation they were just entering upon wdien 
this outbreak of misguided philanthropy occurred at 
the North. They have scattered the seeds of discord 
and alienation broad-cast through the Confederacj-. 
In a word, protesting that they were the exclusive 
friends of the slave, they have taken him to their 
breasts with a hug which reminds one of the embrace 
of that terrific automaton of the Virgin found in the 
dungeons of the " Holy Incjuisition," which, clasping 
the victim in its arms and pressing him to its bosom, 
transfixed him with a thousand concealed spikes and 
knife-blades. And their fitting auxiliaries in all this 
crusade against the South have been British emissa- 
ries ; the subjects of that crown which, in the fiice of 
the remonstrances of some of the colonies, planted 



40 THE UNION. 

slavery in our soil and fostered it into manhood, and 
which at this moment has millions of subjects at 
home and in its colonies who would be the nainers in 
physical comfort, and even in spiritual privilege, by 
exchanging places with our Southern slaves. 

The failure of all past eiforts at the North to ame- 
liorate the condition of the slave is not more palpable 
than is the certainty that the grand expedient now 
contemplated would prove equally abortive. For, 
suppose radicalism could achieve its purpose and split 
the Union to pieces, how would this help the slave? 
Does any man, not a tenant of a Lunatic Asylum, 
believe that Disunion would mitigate the evils of 
Southern servitude ? Would it bring about a relax- 
ation of the laws which regulate it ? Would it incline 
the planters to put books and pens into the hands of 
their slaves ? Would it facilitate the flight of fugi- 
tives? WoLdd it conciliate the various legislatures 
towards schemes of emancipation? No one is so 
infatuated as to affirm this. The most frantic aboli- 
tionists must be aware that the disruption of the 
Union would put a cup of gall and wormwood to the 
lips of every slave ; that it would be a signal for the 
enactment of more stringent laws than have ever 
appeared upon the Southern Statute-books ; and for 
the institution of a system of surveillance on every 
plantation and in every household, the rigor of which 
has no parallel in the records of American bondage. 
In the name, then, of three millions of slaves, we 
protest against all schemes for dissolving the Union. 



THE UNION. 41 

We believe that, terrible as such a catastrophe would 
be to the whites, it would be no less so to the blacks ; 
that it would abridge their privileges, augment their 
burdens, and postpone by many years the period of 
their ultimate emancipation. And we should be 
criminally indifferent to their welfare, as well as 
treacherous to those sacred bonds which have hitherto 
united the North and the South in an honorable and 
affectionate brotherhood, if we could remain silent 
when sincere but mistaken religionists and unprinci- 
pled demagogues have well nigh precipitated the 
country into this frightful abyss. And we are all the 
more disposed to break silence because we believe that, 
of the two classes of agitators just named, the latter has 
a great deal more to do with the present excitement 
than the former. There is, it is true, a settled convic- 
tion in the minds of the Northern people that slavery 
is a great evil, and there is an anxious desire to see 
the country rid of it. But, left to itself, this feeling 
is as still as it is strong and deep ; and it never could 
have been lashed into the foaming surges which now 
break over the land but through the systematic, 
crafty, and wicked exertions of political demagogues. 
There were men in the ancient republics whose motto 
was, 

" Better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven ;" 

and they cared not what became of their country, so 
tliey were promoted. Monsters, it has been said, cannot 
perpetuate their species ; but this species, if not per- 
petuated, has been reproduced, for we indubitably have 



42 THE UNION. 

them among ourselves. Like Erostratus, who, when 
put to the torture, confessed that his motive in setting 
fire to the magnificent temple of Diana at Ephesus 
was to gain himself a name among posterity, these 
men appear to be intent upon attracting to them- 
selves the attention of the world, even though it can 
be done only by applying the torch of civil war to 
this glorious Union. Let us hope that a merciful 
Providence will baffle their designs ; that the upright 
and law-abiding people whom they have, for the time, 
bewitched with their enchantments, will detect the 
real character of their leaders ; and that these local 
ebullitions of fanaticism will soon give place to those 
patriotic and conciliatory sentiments which have in 
every previous crisis of our history proved equally effi- 
cacious against domestic faction and foreign aggression. 
It would be well for all classes of our citizens, at 
this critical juncture, to look Disunion fairly in the 
face. Its unavoidable effects upon the colored popu- 
lation constitute but a tithe of the evils which would 
flow from it. Not to exhaust your patience by gx)ing 
into the question at large, let it sufiice to say that 
Disunion not only involves a fratricidal war, but that 
it would undoubtedly lead to a continued series of 
contentions and disruptions among the States. It 
seems to be taken for granted that, if we divide, we 
divide into two confederations. But why stop at 
two ? It would be quite as natural certainly to form 
four confederations as two. And how long should we 
pause at four? A sense of common danger might 



THE UNION. 43 

hold the new combinations together for a season ; but 
this would give place, after a while, to local and more 
potent influences. The strength of the Union lies 
not in its physical, but its moral power. Its real 
buttresses are not its army and navy, its mines and 
factories, its canals and railroads — not even its writ- 
ten constitutions and charters, its laws and tribunals; 
but its sacred traditions, the inwrought and, until 
lately, universal conviction of its unparalleled benefits, 
and that sense of its sanctity which has made the 
nation regard it with a reverential awe akin to that 
with which the Hebrews looked upon the ark of the 
covenant. The feeling has been that the Union loas 
another ark of the covenant to us — that it was the 
repository of our most precious national mementoes, 
the symbol of the Divine presence with us, and the 
pledge of his future protection. This feeling is not 
to be ascribed to any specific training. It is no set 
lesson we have learned at school, or which has been 
drilled into us like a code of morals or a code of 
manners at home. We have inherited it from the 
mothers who bore us ; we have inhaled it in the air of 
heaven ; it has gathered nourishment from the scenes 
of our firesides, from our daily employments, from 
our journeys, from our sanctuaries, from our national 
anniversaries, from all our experiences and all our 
associations. It has grown with our growth and 
strengthened with our strength, and imperceptibly 
become a part of our being. And this it is which, 
under God, has made the Union so strong ; it is be- 



44 THE UNION. 

cause its roots are struck down into our hearts, and 
so interlaced with the very framework of our moral 
being, that they seem to belong to our personal 
identity. 

Now dissolve the Union, and not only do we cease 
to be what we have been, as individuals, but the 
power of the Union over us is gone, and gone forever. 
You annihilate by one stroke that feeling of its sanc- 
tity which has done more to preserve it than all other 
causes combined. And it matters not whether you 
merely cleave it in halves or divide it down into 
quarters or eighths. One pebble will spoil a mirror as 
well as a handful. The people will have learned, 
from a single rupture, that the Union is frangible — a 
most fatal discovery. For when they, have broken it 
once, they will not scruple, if occasion serves, to break 
it, or rather to break its fragments again ; for it will 
have ceased to be the Union. We shall no longer 
have a national existence. The great events of our 
history — the illustrious names which adorn our annals 
— the heritage of renown committed to us — can no 
longer be appealed to as incentives to virtuous con- 
duct, or as rallying-cries in seasons of peril. What 
orator will dare allude to Bunker Hill or York- 
town, to Champlain or Erie ? What senator will dare 
invoke the name of Washington — or to speak of 
Henry and Marshall, of Greene and Morgan, of Jack- 
son and Harrison, of Hull and Bainbridge ? These 
illustrious men toiled and bled for the UNION ; and 
when we shall have destroyed the work of their 



THE UNION. 45 

hands, and resolved the almost perfect government 
they established or defended at so great a cost into a 
group of petty jarring confederacies, shame will con- 
spire with ingratitude in consigning their names, their 
honors, and their sufferings, to a speedy and an eter- 
nal oblivion. Nothing — if this calamity awaits us — 
nothing presents itself to our expectations but a 
future as humiliating and disastrous as our past has 
been bright and ennobling. Instead of that benefi- 
cent mission which we have been wont to suppose 
had been confided to us, of leading the nations on to 
freedom and happiness, we may look forward to pro- 
tracted scenes of anarchy and bloodshed, which will 
sicken and discourage the patriots of other lands, and 
supply the partisans of arbitrary power with a tri- 
umphant proof that nations require a master. 

We are not at liberty to disregard this consideration. 
Even if we were so lost to virtue and patriotism as 
to be reckless of the fate of our own countrymen, we 
could not elude the responsibilities which rest upon 
us in reference to the world at large. This Union 
cannot expire as the snow melts from the rock, or a 
star disappears from the firmament. AYhen it Mis, 
the crash will be heard in all lands. Wherever the 
winds of Heaven go, that will go, bearing sorrow and 
dismay to millions of stricken hearts. Not the dismay 
and sorrow incident to the blighting of their own 
prospects and the breaking up of their household 
plans ; but the deep and inconsolable grief occasioned 
by a calamity so startling and so disastrous in its 



46 THE UNION. 

bearings upon the hajDpIness of mankind as to leave 
the mind no opportunity for expatiating on its own 
private misfortunes. For the subversion of this Go- 
vernment will render the cause of coNSTiTUTioisrAL 
LIBERTY hopeless throughout the world. What nation 
can govern itself, if this nation cannot ? What encou- 
ragement will any people have to establish liberal insti- 
tutions for themselves, if ours fail? Providence has laid 
upon us the responsibility and the honor of solving that 
problem in which all coming generations of men have a 
profound interest, whether the true ends of government 
can be secured by a popular representative system. 
In the munificence of his goodness, he put us in pos- 
session of our heritage by a series of interpositions 
scarcely less signal than those which conducted the 
Hebrews to Canaan ; and He has up to this period 
withheld from us no immunities or resources which 
might facilitate an auspicious result. Never before 
was a people so advantageously situated for working 
out this great problem in flxvor of human liberty. 
And it is important for us to understand that the 
world so regards it. The argument with which Na- 
poleon inflamed the ardor of his troops on the eve of 
the great battle of the Pyramids was in these preg- 
nant words, " Soldiers ! consider that from the sum- 
mits of yonder Pyramids forty centuries look down 
upon you." Whatever the rhetoricians may say of 
this speech, they must at least admit that the prin- 
ciple to which it appeals constitutes one of the most 
powerful springs of human action, and that no man 



THE UNION". 47 

is at liberty to disregard its promptings. We, cer- 
tainly, are bound to remember that the nations are 
looking to us, not for themselves only, but for the 
" centuries" which are to follow, to learn whether 
^' order and law, religion and morality, the rights of 
conscience, the rights of persons, and the rights of 
property, may all be preserved and secured in the 
most perfect manner by a government entirely and 
purely elective." And if, in the frenzy of our base 
sectional jealousies, we dig the grave of the Union, 
and thus decide this question in the negative, no 
tongue may attempt to depict the disappointment and 
despair which will go along with the announcement 
as it spreads through distant lands. It will be at once 
the most unlooked-for and the most irrefragable tes- 
timony ever given to the odious theory, that princes 
were made to govern, and nations only to obey. It 
will be America, after fifty years' experience, in 
the course of which period she had done more to in- 
spire the nations with a desire for liberal institutions 
than all other popular Governments combined had 
effected in the lapse of ages, giving in her adhesion 
to the doctrine that man was not made for self-govern- 
ment. It will be Freedom herself proclaiming that 
Freedom is a chimera ; Liberty ringing her own knell 
all over the globe. And when the citizens or subjects 
of the Governments which are to succeed this Union 
shall visit Europe, and see in some land, now 
struggling to cast off its fetters, the lacerated and 
lifeless form of Liberty laid prostrate under the iron 



48 THE UNION. 

heel of despotism, let them remember that the blow 
which destroyed her was inflicted by their own coun- 
try. 

" So the struck Eagle, stretched upon the plain, 
No more through rolling clouds to soar again, 
Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, 
And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart. 
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel 
lie nursed the pinion which impelled the steel; 
While the same plumage that had warmed his nest 
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast." 

Nor is this the only aspect in which the issues of 
Disunion present themselves to our contemplation. 
"We are forced to consider them as well in respect to 
our spiritual as our civil and social interests. For 
the most remarkable characteristic of this whole 
movement is that the sacred name of Religion 
should be invoked to give a sanction to measures 
adapted to destroy this government ; the Union is to 
be broken up for the sake of religion! The lofty 
morality of the Scriptures will not permit us to live 
too-ether under a constitution which authorizes the 

o 

Fugitive Slave Law; and we must separate. 

"I thought where all thy circling wiles would end ; 
In feign'd religion, smooth hypocrisy I" 

It needed but this ingredient to consummate the su- 
perlative madness and impiety of this scheme. For, if 
there is any one great national interest upon which the 
disruption of these States would fall with a crushing 
weight, it is our Ciiristianity — that interest which 



THE UNION. 49 

as much surpasses all others m importance as it will 

in duration. 

There is no land where Christianity has achieved 

nobler victories than it has here. Enjoying at once ple- 

« 
nary protection from the State and the utmost freedom, 

it has developed itself with a purity and an energy 
rarely witnessed in the Old "World. It was a sublime 
undertaking, that of supplying, without the aid of en- 
dowments or government patronage, churches and spi- 
ritual teachers for a youthful and growing nation like 
this, diffused over so great an expanse of territory. 
And the predictions of failure were equally sanguine 
and universal among the adherents of the ecclesias- 
tical establishments of Europe. But these predictions 
have not been verified. We may venture to assert, 
without violating the modesty proper to the occasion, 
that Christianity has accomplished far more than its 
friends could have anticipated ; that the efficiency of 
the voluntary principle, as displayed here, has excited 
the astonishment of its bitterest opponents ; and that 
we have done more by our example to refute the 
vicious theories of foreign statesmen and ecclesiastics, 
and to promote the progress of religious liberty on 
that side of the water, than could have been done by 
whole libraries of polemical divinity. The time for- 
bids me to go into detail. But no candid observer 
can survey our country, in its moral and religious 
features, without being impressed with the grandeur 
of the results already achieved here. Not to speak 
of the churches with which the land is dotted 



60 THE UNION. 

over; the large body of educated and evangelical 
clergymen who occupy our pulpits and conduct most 
of the higher literary institutions; the liberal sums 
spontaneously contributed for the support and propa- 
gation of the Gospel ; and the promptitude with 
which further subsidies and new laborers are sup- 
plied as fresh fields demand cultivation; look at 
the benign and j)owerful influence religion has ex- 
erted upon the population at large. There was a 
work to be done here so indispensable that the govern- 
ment could not get on tranquilly without it, but which 
the Government could not do. Relio:ion has done it. 
It has been the chief agent in establishing our systenis 
of education. It has been the main-spring of most of 
the humane institutions designed to alleviate the 
wants and improve the condition of the people. It 
has gone down among the masses, and not only fed 
them and clothed them, but renovated their prin- 
ciples, restrained their passions, taught them their 
duties, and made them value their privileges. It has 
received in the arms of its comprehensive charity the 
myriads who land upon our wharves ; and done more 
by its wondrous alchemy, than all other agencies com- 
bined, to transmute them into good citizens, and to 
homologate all creeds and parties and tongues in a 
harmonious brotherhood. It has redoubled its exer- 
tions to keep pace with the tide of emigration as it 
has rolled over the prairies, pierced the primeval 
forests of the West, and poured itself down the slopes 
of the Rocky Mountains upon the fertile plains of 



THE UNION. 51 

Oregon and into the auriferous valleys of California. 
And, not satisfied with domestic conquestSj though 
stretching from ocean to ocean, it has sent forth its 
peaceful cohorts to distant shores; and from Asia, 
from Africa, from the Isles of the Sea, ten thousand 
voices come back to j^roclaim their bloodless victories, 
and to assure us that the wilderness and the solitary 
place have been made glad for them, and the desert 
rejoices and blossoms as the rose. 

Now let the Union be dissolved, and how certainly 
will this vision pass away. For it is not jDossible that 
this event should occur without involving religion in 
the general catastrophe. It is a common maxim that, 
in times of public distress or alarm, credit is the first 
thing to suffer. It is no less true that Religion sym- 
pathizes at such crises, not only with credit, but with 
every other element of prosperity. Christianity is not 
a thing by itself — a mere matter of Bible-reading and 
Church-going, of Sundays and Sacraments. It is in- 
terfused, as we have just seen, through all our rela- 
tions, comprehends all our employments, and exerts 
its prerogative over the whole field of human duty. 
The moment you touch the commerce or the hus- 
bandry of a country, you touch its Christianity. If you 
paralyze any branch of industry, weaken the popular 
confidence in the government, excite an expectation 
of war, or do anything else to agitate the public 
mind, religion feels the effect of it. It requires no 
prophet, therefore, to foresee that, in the event of a 
disruption, the churches would share in the common 



52 THE UNION. 

fortunes of the country. Amidst despondency and 
terror, dissensions and war, their strength would 
dwindle and their zeal decline. With diminished re- 
sources, the money now appropriated to the mainte- 
nance and diffusion of the Gospel would be wanted 
to pay troops and purchase munitions of war ; or, 
should an appeal to arms be averted, to meet the 
enormous taxes for civil and military purposes inci- 
dent to the new order of things, and the critical rela- 
tions among the several States and Federations. It 
is no extravagant supposition that, if the process of 
dissolution once begins, it will not finally stop until 
the Republic is chopped up into six or eight distinct 
Leagues, each one of which must have its own general 
government, with the usual symbols and implements 
of nationality, such as Legislative and Judicial tri- 
bunals, ambassadors, a navy, and, what will then be 
unavoidable, a cordon of camps and fortresses and a 
considerable standing army. The very transit from 
our present condition to a state like this would be 
like the passage of a fleet through the Norwegian 
Maelstrom. It would extinguish hundreds of feeble 
churches and shatter the strongest ones. Instead of 
keeping pace with the spiritual wants of our nomadic 
population, which they are barely able to do when 
blessed with a redundant prosperity, the various de- 
nominations would find it difficult to sustain them- 
selves at home. Foreign Missionaries would be re- 
called, and fields restored to paganism which have 
been won from it at a great outlay of money and life, 



THE UNION. 53 

and which are now "white to the harvest." The 
circumstances of the country would be as unpropi- 
tious to the culture of sound morals as they are now 
favorable. Infidelity and atheism would run riot 
through the land, violence and crime would super- 
abound, and we should deteriorate in all those high 
moral qualities which have hitherto attested the effi- 
cacy of our Christianity and secured for us the respect 
of the civilized world. 

And all this avalanche of evil is to be brought down 
upon us for the sake of Religion ! We are to ex- 
change our present condition for alienation, insecurity, 
commercial prostration, the decay of our churches, 
and the bankruptcy of our great charities — for the 
sake of religion ! We are to make the Bible a nullity, 
and the Sabbath a day of amusement, re-open all the 
sluices of immorality, and deluge the land with licen- 
tiousness and profanity — for the sake of religion ! We 
are to disband our schools and churches among the 
heathen, and send back the multitudes, now under 
Christian instruction, to worship in idol temples and 
sacrifice their children to devils, for the sake of religion ! 

We protest against this huge impiety. If fanatics 
and demagogues are resolved to destroy this Union, 
let them not pretend to sanctify the parricidal crime 
by perpetrating it in the name of religion. Enough 
that Buddhism should crush its deluded devotees 
under the car of Juggernaut, in the name of religion ; 
that Mohammed should fertilize kingdoms with human 
blood, in the name of religion ; that a spurious Chris- 
5 



54 THE UNION. 

tianity should keep its arsenals of chains and fagots 
and slaughter whole tribes of unoffending peasants, 
in the name of religion. Let not Satan come hither 
also in the robes of an angel of hght. Let not 
the august name of religion be invoked to hallow 
an enormity which would not only shroud this 
land in mourning, but inflict upon religion itself the 
most irreparable injury. Every consideration of 
virtue not only, but of decency, forbids that Chris- 
tianity should be called upon to preside at an auto-da- 
fe of which it is itself to be the holocaust ; to conse- 
crate an action which would for the time arrest its 
own beneficent triumphs, clothe atheistic impiety 
with superhuman power, and send a thrill of sardonic 
joy through those infernal legions who exult only in 
the calamities of virtue and the victories of sin. 

Not to pursue this painful theme, it must be too 
apparent to require argument that the dismember- 
ment of this Union would be one of the most appal- 
ling calamities which could befall the world. " Other 
misfortunes (I use the words of the great statesman of 
Massachusetts) may be borne or their effects overcome. 
If disastrous war should sweep our commerce from the 
ocean, another generation may renew it ; if it exhaust 
our treasury, future industry may replenish it ; if it 
desolate and lay waste our fields, still under a new 
cultivation they will grow green again and ripen to 
future harvests. It were but a trifle even if the 
walls of the Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty 
pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all 
covered by the dust of the valley. All these might 



THE UNION. 55 

be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of 
demolished Government ? Who shall rear ao;ain the 
well-proportioned columns of Constitutional liberty ? 
Who shall frame together the skilful architecture 
which unites national sovereignty with State-rights, 
individual security, and public prosperity ? No, if these 
columns fall, they will not be raised again. Like the 
Coliseum and the Parthenon, they will be destined to 
a mournful, a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, 
however, will flow over them than were ever shed 
over the monuments of Eoman or Grecian art ; for they 
will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than 
Greece or Rome ever saw — the edifice of Constitu- 
tional American Liberty."* But why sliould they 
fall ? What is it which now threatens to over- 
whelm this Government in irretrievable ruin ? Has 
it become so enervated by luxury as to sink into a 
state of inanition ? Are we falling to pieces through 
the extraordinary and intractable expansion of our 
territory ? Is there a victorious army at our gates ? 
Are we ground down with oppressive laws for which 
there is no remedy but in a dissolution ? No : none 
of these. But Congress, in the exercise of a power 
never before called in question, has admitted a State 
into the Union which refused to tolerate involuntary 
servitude ; and in obedience to an imperative requisi- 
tion of the Constitution, has passed a law for the 
reclamation of fugitive slaves ! These are the grounds 
on which it is proposed to destroy this Government. 

* Mr. Webster's Speech at the celebration of Washington's Birth- 
day, in Washington, 1832. 



56 THE UNION. 

For these reasons we are called upon, in the midst of 
peace, plenty, and prosperity, to exchange the best 
Government the world has ever seen — the most afflu- 
ent blessings, the most glorious reminiscences, and the 
most brilliant prospects a nation ever enjoyed — for dis- 
memberment, anarchy, and carnage. Surely, if the 
establishment of this Union by the voluntary consent 
of the people was, as Mr. Hamilton declared, a 
" prodigy," its voluntary destruction by that same 
people or their degenerate descendants, for causes like 
these and after sixty years experience of its benefits, 
would be a far greater prodigy. The turpitude of such 
a crime has nothing in history to illustrate it. Lan- 
guage was not made to define it. The generation 
which perpetrates it will cover themselves with an 
infamy as deep as the abyss into which they will 
have plunged their country. And the patriots of all 
coming generations will execrate the memories of the 
men who betrayed the priceless heritage of Constitu- 
tional Liberty which was purchased with the blood 
of their fathers and placed in their hands as trustees 
for all mankind. 

Let it be our aim to do what we can to avert so 
fearful a catastrophe. Let us cultivate a spirit of 
conciliation towards all portions of the Confederacy. 
Let us sustain the majesty of the law. Let us invoke 
the blessing of heaven upon our rulers. Let us, above 
all, be instant and earnest in commending our beloved 
country to the care of that benignant Providence who 
has brought us through so many dangers and crowned 
us with such unexampled prosperity. -- ^q ^ 



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